Jesus And The Pythagorean Theorem

Dear Friends,

I am one of those people who learns by doing. It was something I discovered in high school as I was trying to master geometry. No matter how many times I listened to the teacher explain the Pythagorean Theorem, I never really understood it until I tried working the problems myself. Then it made sense to me.

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized that this style of learning also applied to my spiritual life. In other words, I discovered that I could understood much more clearly what God's Word was trying to teach me when I actually started living it out. It’s not that I wasn’t getting any benefit out of simply reading the Bible - it’s more that what the Bible was telling me about life and how to live became much more real and understandable when I actually lived out what I was reading.

I think Jesus is the perfect example of how to do this. As He went through life, Jesus showed us how to love and care for each other. By touching the lepers, or reaching out to the despised Samaritans, or including marginalized women, He showed us how to see, include, and love people or groups that we may not normally like or connect with. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus showed us what obedience looks like. On the cross, He showed us what sacrificial love looks like. And in the resurrection, He showed us what victory over sin and death looks like. In all that He did, Jesus showed us what it means to live out the truths we read about in the Bible.

Then, as He left this earth, He told His disciples to “go and do”. It’s His final instruction to the men who had listened to His teaching for three years - and it’s an instruction to take everything they had heard from Him, and put it into practice. James 1:22 puts it like this:  “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.”

In all of this it seems pretty clear to me that God doesn’t want us to just read about who He is, and then go on living however we’d like to live. He wants us to put into practice what it is that we're reading and learning about Him. He wants us to follow the example Jesus gave us.

So today, let's ask God to help us be “doers” of His Word. Let’s ask Him to help us take all that we know about who He is and how He’s called us to live here on earth, and put it into action - becoming doers of the word, just like His Son.

Amen?

Daniel